In general, mobile communications terminals (hereinafter, referred to as “terminals”) have firmware programs loaded therein when manufactured. When a terminal sold in the marketplace malfunctions, or the program loaded in the terminal is to be updated, the firmware program must be downloaded into the terminal again at a service center.
However, when power of the terminal is off while downloading (updating) the program or a PC (personal computer) is shut down, the downloading (updating) of the program may fail. Consequently, because the downloading process has not been completed, normal booting of the terminal is impossible.
Accordingly, if the above-described situation occurs, the terminal has a unit for allowing the terminal to enter a forcible download mode by pressing a designated particular key (button). However, in case of a personal digital assistant (PDA) integrated terminal, also called a “PDA phone”, key scan is not performed in a communication module (e.g., a CDMA module or MSM) itself. Rather, a result value obtained by the key scan in a PDA module is transmitted to the communication module via a predetermined communication port, called “UART2”. Thus, the above-described forcible download mode switching method cannot be applied to the PDA phone.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, the PDA integrated terminal has a PDA module for performing a PDA function and a communication module for performing a mobile phone function, which are separated from each other to perform the different functions and roles. A control packet is transmitted and received between the PDA module and the communication module through a communication port (UART2). The communication module is also connected to another communication port (UART1) in order to download a binary program through an external interface connector. However, when a mode of the terminal must be switched to a forcible download mode, such as when it is impossible to normally boot the terminal, a key scan, wherein a key on a keypad of a general terminal is pressed, is not recognized in the communication module itself. However, the key scan is recognized in the PDA module and a value of such a result is transmitted to the communication module through a predetermined communication port, such as the UART2.
Accordingly, the PDA integrated terminal can recognize the key operation being transmitted from the PDA module when a certain task for serial communications with the PDA is smoothly performed after the communication module is normally booted. However, if the binary program is being downloaded to the communication module and the downloading process is not successfully completed, the communication module cannot be normally booted. Thus, communication between the PDA module and the communication module are not performed. Accordingly, even though the user intends the terminal to enter the forcible download mode by pressing a particular key (button) as in a related method, the PDA integrated terminal cannot recognize the key operation and therefore the related method cannot be applied.
In addition, the PDA integrated terminal is designed such that the binary download can be supported through all communication ports (e.g., UART1 and UART2). In particular, the UART1 is used for mass production, and the UART2 is used when the user is linked to an Internet site of the manufacturer, downloads a binary file and directly performs an update.
More specifically, the UART1 is used for binary download for mass production of terminals, RF (Radio Frequency) calibration, Cait and DM (Diagnostic Monitoring), Script, and PRL Read & Write. The UART2 is used to transmit and receive a control packet between a PDA module and a CDMA module or for the user to connect to the Internet site of the manufacturer, download the binary file to the PC, and perform an on-line update function by copying the binary file to the PDA connected via USB (Universal Serial Bus). In the related art, the forcible download is performed with a particular port (UART1). However, when the forcible download function is performed by the UART1 port, an interface connector especially manufactured by the manufacturer, such as a 24-pin connector named LT, is required for mass production. Accordingly, when the user attempts to update the binary program himself or herself, and the update fails because of various problems, the forcible download function cannot be performed without the interface connector.